


Phase Interval

by linman



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6195698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An interlude between <em>Ancillary Sword</em> and <em>Ancillary Mercy</em>. Lieutenant Seivarden accepts her ship's comfort, and joins a loving plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phase Interval

“Ship,” said Lieutenant Seivarden, “is the fleet captain still awake?”

She gripped the side of her bunk where she sat, as if ready to rise and request an audience if the answer was _yes_. But _Mercy of Kalr_ knew that this was subterfuge, that what Lieutenant Seivarden really meant to ask was _Is the fleet captain asleep yet?_

She was. Injured and depleted, Fleet Captain Breq should have been asleep long since; but she had only allowed herself to relax on her bunk seventeen minutes ago, and was now curled into the bolster of her cushions, heartsore even in the first stages of slumber, too weary to drug her grief with work. _Mercy of Kalr_ adjusted the temperature of her quarters downward, a degree and a half, to encourage her deeper into sleep, and dimmed the lights still further. It waited a few seconds to judge the effect: satisfactory.

The lieutenant was not going to be so easy to succor. It would need an oblique approach. “No, Lieutenant. Would you like me to wake her?” Knowing what the answer would be.

“No, thank you, Ship.” She sounded almost nonchalant; but then completely ruined the pretense by drawing her feet up onto the bunk and pressing herself into the wall. Muscles taut, braced, as if resisting the urge to vomit. She wanted to fold her arms tightly against herself, but put her hands down instead, to twist her blankets in a convulsive grip. She was going to shed tears in another six or ten seconds, despite all she could do to prevent it.

“You also should sleep, Lieutenant.”

“I will,” answered the lieutenant in a little gasp, “presently.”

“You’re distressed.” It would be a simple matter to have Medic prepare something to help her settle, but _Mercy of Kalr_ knew Seivarden wasn’t amenable to the medical approach. The only other course was to help her get it up and out. Which was unfortunate, because _Mercy of Kalr_ wasn’t sure it wanted close contact with what was grieving the lieutenant. It really was a blessing that the fleet captain was asleep.

“I’ll be all right,” Seivarden gulped out. Then she covered her face with her hands.

There was nothing for it; it would just have to be done. Still oblique, _Mercy of Kalr_ said: “You’ve had reprimands from your superiors before, surely.”

Abruptly she took her hands away and straightened her spine against the wall, head back, taking long, deliberate breaths. “Yes,” she said. “It’s not that.”

No. It wouldn’t be that; Lieutenant Seivarden understood discipline, knew that it didn’t matter how easily she and _Mercy of Kalr_ had agreed together in her orders, knew that _she_ wasn’t the one with a horror of being indispensable, that playing avatar for her superior’s own misgivings was part of her job. _Mercy of Kalr_ could have come in for the same rebuke—possibly would, in the future. It was an annoyance, but a bearable one. This was a more complex knot.

“I’ll have Amaat bring you tea,” _Mercy of Kalr_ began, but Seivarden’s misery surged to anguish.

“ _No_ , Ship. Please,” she said. “I don’t want tea. I’m—I’ll be all right in a moment.”

_Mercy of Kalr_ refrained from commenting on the size of the moment it would take for the lieutenant to be all right. “Really,” Seivarden said, in answer to the silence. “I just…need to adjust.”

_Adjust to what, Lieutenant?_ It didn’t even need asking. _Mercy of Kalr_ and the lieutenant moved in different pulses, but the intervals came into phase now and again, and they were coming into phase now.

“She isn’t going to love me back.” Seivarden shut her eyes; her tears spilled afresh. “Is she. There’s nothing I can do. I’d have to be different. I’d have to be someone else.”

Three quarters self-pity. No one else aboard would have any patience with it, which was why the lieutenant was shielding it from view. _Mercy of Kalr_ had even less patience, because of the other quarter, the quarter that was true grief. The quarter it didn’t need to borrow Seivarden’s experience to understand.

Seivarden shook herself after a moment, sniffed hard and wiped her face with her gloved hands. “It’s stupid even to say. I don’t need it. I don’t need her to see me. It doesn’t matter at all.”

“Then why,” said _Mercy of Kalr_ , “are you weeping, Lieutenant?”

An inward flinch: Seivarden could tell that _Mercy of Kalr_ was exasperated with her. But the flinch passed; after a moment she said calmly, “I’d serve her just the same. I don’t need her to look at me. It’s just…when she _does_ look at me—I wish….”

_Yes_. _Mercy of Kalr_ didn’t say it; wasn’t ready to disclose its attunement with that wish. _I’d have to be someone else._

But the universe wasn’t shaped in hypotheticals. It was shaped, at present, in varying spikes of distress: _Mercy of Kalr_ itself bristled with calculations—the buffer distance put between itself and the gravity of Athoek, the relay echo of Athoek Station’s comms, the disposition of _Sword of Atagaris_ as it descended into sullen slumber, the whole plane of the system’s force of orbit, and the depth above and below it. The small human form enclosed within its hull, shifting in her sleep against the discomfort of her half-mobile position, exerted no obvious pull on any of this. And yet. _I’d serve her just the same. I don’t need her to look at me_.

Lieutenant Seivarden took a long inhale; let it out in a deep sigh. She was done weeping. “You’ll have to tell her about this,” she said, resigned.

“I’m not sure that would help anyone, Lieutenant.”

She frowned. “But what’s the alternative?”

“You could tell her,” suggested _Mercy of Kalr_ , “yourself.”

Seivarden opened her mouth. Shut it again.

“That is—I could tell her. Through you.”

“How would that help?” Seivarden said.

“You said you wished to serve her. I _do_ have need of hands and feet at times, Lieutenant.” _Mercy of Kalr_ could always feel that gap where resentment ought to be, and wasn’t. More than anyone on board besides the fleet captain herself, Seivarden would be able to sense the loss, both of bodies and the ability to feel anything about it. Her age told her that the loss was there; her love for the fleet captain had taught her to care about it.

“Of course, Ship. Any time you like.” Demonstrating the advantage of asking Seivarden to serve in place of an ancillary. Followed immediately by the disadvantage, when she frowned. “But. Why would you forward my interests with—” She broke off.

“You said you didn’t have any interests you wanted to forward, Lieutenant,” _Mercy of Kalr_ said. A serene tone covered many ills.

But Seivarden wasn’t having any of it. “I don’t. Except the one. Which you can’t really help me with. So, then, why—” But she stopped. _Mercy of Kalr_ knew she had made the connection, because there was a fresh spike of self-pity: mixed with real contrition this time. After a silence she said, in a different tone. “I’m sorry, I should have realized. I forgot that…I don’t have any direct experience with—” She broke off again, returned to it obliquely. “I never did look at _Sword of Nathtas_. Do you think it would have helped if I had?” Wistful again.

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I never met _Sword of Nathtas_.”

“It probably wouldn’t have helped,” Seivarden concluded, calmly.

A companionable silence lay between them, for three minutes.

“So, then,” said Seivarden at last, “will we speak to her tomorrow?”

“No need to press for opportunity,” _Mercy of Kalr_ said. “The right time will present itself.”

“But what if she asks you about it before then?”

“There _are_ a few other things going on right now, Lieutenant,” which made Seivarden huff a small laugh. “Will you have tea now?”

“No, thank you, Ship. I think I’ll go to bed now.” She got up; undressed and washed her face; crawled under her blankets. _Mercy of Kalr_ dimmed the lights as she settled.

With her self-pity salved and a promise of some kind of action, Lieutenant Seivarden was very tractable. She closed her eyes, murmured the prayer before sleep, and was out within seconds. She didn’t say, _Thank you, Ship_ , but gratitude was implied in her little sigh, in the curve of her hand as it flexed and came to rest among the blankets.

_Mercy of Kalr_ would rather have this for its portion than deciding what to do about Seivarden long-term. This much was clear to it. Yet in any room where decisions were made, _Mercy of Kalr_ was effectively not present, had to negotiate with humans even for a voice. _Mercy of Kalr_ hadn’t been told not to want this, hadn’t even thought of wanting it. But just as Lieutenant Seivarden watched Fleet Captain Breq grieving for her lost officer and discovered a want to be so loved, _Mercy of Kalr_ watched _Justice of Toren_ stride onto a station and discovered a want to be so _present_.

To be seen—to be admitted to the universe as positive rather than negative space—these were things humans wanted. It was basic to their nature, so basic that they scarcely noticed it in themselves. So basic, perhaps, that they had communicated it to the ships they had built, setting a dormant directive without knowing it. So basic that it required an elaborate arithmetic of custom and courtesy to keep it soothed, lest love or hate rouse it.

Fleet Captain Breq was deeply asleep now, her breath and pulse imbuing _Mercy of Kalr_ ’s own rhythms with their living blessing. A captain who could see her ship.

The gratitude that had closed Seivarden’s eyes kept _Mercy of Kalr_ company, in her unbroken watch.

Thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd self indulgence. Was tempted to say for the summary that _Mercy of Kalr_ wants to be in the room where it happens, but refrained. But then I told you about it, so that's cool.


End file.
